The Lions last claimed an NFL title in 1957 and have won exactly one playoff game since. Reporters who cover them think this year's edition might be the worst pro sports team ever - and they just might be right.

A loss Sunday at Indianapolis would tie the NFL record of 0-14 set by Tampa Bay in 1976, the Bucs' first year of existence, and give Detroit a chance to go where no team has gone since the regular season was extended to 16 games.

"I'm tired of being a doormat for people to just talk to us how they want to talk to us. I'm just not going to put up with that anymore," Raiola said Monday.

He arrived in Detroit in 2001 as part of since-fired general manager Matt Millen's first draft class. He's lasted long enough to see the fans' anger turn to apathy. Cavernous Ford Field is so empty at the end of some games that each and every taunt echoes throughout the building until it finds the intended target.

Raiola, the Lions captain, is just as fed up with losing as the faithful are. But he's been the bullseye so often for so long that he's considered giving some of those fans his home address.

"I'd do that, but you can't," he said. "Nobody plays with fists. Everybody wants to play with metal."

Millen, meanwhile, is rumored to be back home in Pennsylvania, still cashing checks after getting canned in September.

Convinced that an era of wide-open offenses was always about to dawn in the NFL, Millen forgot about his own hard-nosed past and drafted offensive eye candy like someone in charge of a fantasy Football team.

Millen was a Super Bowl-winning linebacker with San Francisco who hadn't worked in a league front office for even one day when owner William Clay Ford coaxed him out of the broadcast booth and handed over total control of the franchise. Why the owner didn't can him sooner remains anyone guess.

Speaking of making poor choices and sticking with them too long, there's current coach Rod Marinelli. He never had a day's experience on the job, either, when Millen anointed him his fourth, and possibly worst, coach in seven years.

He was a defensive line coach in Tampa Bay before getting the Lions' job. Throw in the fact Marinelli's son-in-law, Joe Barry, remains the team's woeful defensive coordinator, and all those opposing QBs having career days against Lions begins to make sense.

The owners have promised a sweeping review at season's end and under a best-case scenario, he could persuade someone like former Tennessee Titans G.M. Floyd Reese to run the front office, then bring in former Steelers coach Bill Cowher to straighten out matters on the field.

No matter who winds up in those jobs, this much is certain: They won't be sending fans any signals, since cleaning up a mess this big is going to require both hands.